The decision to construct 13 of the 18 stations above ground has angered Tapatios who live and work in the subway line’s path.
Cost is the major reason why the line will be mostly elevated, say transportation authorities, who recently awarded concessions to constructors to start work on the first stage of the 17.6-billion-peso project. If the entire line were subterranean, the cost would increase by 9.3 billion pesos, they maintain.
A concrete, elevated train line will not only be an eyesore but a security risk and “degrade” neighborhoods, reducing the value of properties, say many people living and working nearby.
A battle appears to be brewing. Social media sites have been launched to bring the debate to a wider public, while municipal and state officials have planned meetings with home and business owners in a bid to assuage their concerns over the line.
Alejandro Cardenas, president of Guadalajara’s Neighborhood Parliament, said moves by authorities to cozy up to neighbors will be rejected and are likely only to harden public opinion against the project.
Cardenas accused the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) state government of hypocrisy, noting that in opposition six years ago their legislators nixed a BRT bus project (Macrobus Line Two) that would have run along exactly the same route as the third subway line. If built completely below ground, many neighbors say they would have no opposition to the project.
A price comparison with Enrique Peña Nieto’s new presidential plane and hangar, which cost the federal government 7.3 billion pesos, has been doing the social media rounds. The cost of that “nonessential” project is only two billion less than the amount required to make Tren Ligero Line Three subterranean, critics say. The subway line will transport 233,000 passengers a day, while the president’s luxurious plane accommodates 250 people, they point out.
Universidad de Guadalajara (UdG) sociologist and researcher Alfredo Rico said the current project can only be considered viable if the public and city receive some kind of benefit from the area running below the elevated line, perhaps as a linear park for recreative use. Preliminary work on the third subway line is expected to begin next month.